


Adopted Nee-san

by pandaspots



Category: Persona 5
Genre: (pls ao3 make the name be 'always a different GENDER'), Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Brother-Sister Relationships, F/M friendship, Gen, iwai makes a special appearance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-27 20:53:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16709854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pandaspots/pseuds/pandaspots
Summary: Ren accidentally adopts a middle-schooler for a little brother.





	Adopted Nee-san

**Author's Note:**

> hey i'm alive and still working on that lesbian akeshus, but. i have this sitting in my drive for like. a wholeass year. it's finished and part of a bigger AU i'm slowly working on. accept this cutesy gift while i try to organize my head to put out some quality lesbians on my other fic.

“Hey, isn't that the King?”

“Yeah, what's he doin’ playin’ with a high schooler?”

“Man, the king’s got more game than we losers…”

Shinya didn't hear the gossip, he simply kept shooting in the Gun About booth as Ren took five to uncramp.

(Just uncramp. Her period came early this month and the cold weather paired with her sheer unpreparedness left her body feeling like a singular cramp.)

That relaxation moment allowed, unfortunately, for her to hear the gossip around. Ryuji had warned her that the Akiba arcades were more greasy-nerd-heavy than the ones in Shibuya, but it apparently was specially worse around Shin-chan.

“You okay, Ren-san? Can't slack off now if you're ever going to outshoot me.” Shinya said, not looking away from the screen.

“Been better. What do I get if I get 50k points from your score?” She taunted, trying to ignore the whistles from the spectators.

“One of my demon lords from the gacha toys,” he replied, and the crowd was divided between thinking it was a smooth move and thinking it was lame.

“I want Satanael.” She ignored the crowd and shot back at him, and Shinya turned to stare at her, dumbfounded.

“That is the rarest of them.”

“You said any of your demon lords. Satanael is a demon lord. I know you have two, you opened conversation yesterday with ‘I'm so good at gacha, I got another Satanael today’.” She smirked and the boy blushed brilliantly, and cursed heavily under his breath.

“Ugh. Fine. But only if you get  _ under _ 50k, not  _ around _ . Around 50k you get a Satan or Lucifer to match your personality,” Shin-chan grumbled like an old man, and the crowd started whispering that maybe they could steal the king's girlfriend if that's how he talks to her.

Godspeed trying to steal a dakimakura, because that pairs with an actual crime. 

“I rather think if you're going to compare me to demons, you should aim for women demons,” she informed him cheerily, and Mother Harlot cackled inside her.

“I ain't got none in my collection,” Shin-chan said, sounding miffed. “Also enough chatting, you're just trying to distract me to lower my score.”

_ Sharp kid, _ Ishtar tutted,  _ were he a decade older…  _ Ren snorted, because it was so odd to interact with Shin-chan ever since fusing those two personas; she hasn't felt any different, but all her male friends except Iwai-san and Tora-san had accused her of using her looks to get things from them. (She assumed those older two were being good, responsible adults, and Sojiro was like her dad, and as Mother Harlot put it so eloquently once, parents are not fuckable.)

“I'm not trying anything, Shin-chan,” she chirped, smiling. “If I was that bad of a person, I would've gone home and changed first.”

She laughed and relented when the poor 12 year old sputtered, bright red and looking anywhere but at her.

In the end, she came so close into her promised range, she had to open the calc app to see if she did it instead of eyeballing it like usual.

“Pay up, Shin-chan, I managed 49,930 points less than you.” Ren said, a smug smile of accomplishment on her face.

“N-no way! That rounded up is still 50k! That still counts as around.” He huffed, indignantly.

“Being a sore loser is sooo not cute, Shin-chan.” She pouted, and he stalked out of the Gun About booth, squatting against a wall to sulk.

_ The boy is upset again. I had understood his mother had been dealt with? _ Isabela inquired, a ripple of similar questionings coming from her other personas.

“Is everything alright, Shin-chan?” she asked, squatting and sitting on her feet’s heels beside him.

“I don't want to give Satanael to you,” he mumbled, bright red face and looking away.

“Why, did you promise your extra one to your crush?”

She was joking, and kind of expected he didn't want to part with his hard-won prize, especially since he knew she had a part-time job and could afford to attempt to get the figurine by herself. She did not expect Shinya to look away more pointedly and get even redder, hugging his knees.

“Oh my goodness. Shinya, are you serious? Is it that Rumi-chan you were talking about last week?” He shook his head. “Is it on Edogawa-sensei?” She teased and he snapped his head to look at her, scandalized.

“No! Edogawa-sensei is a billion years old!”

“Mariko-chan, then? You seemed to get along with her fine.”

“No.”

“Hibi-chan?”

“She said Gun About was a stupid game, we aren't friends anymore.”

_ Let us try a different angle. What if she's older? _ Cybele suggested, and Ren tried to think older girls who interacted frequently with Shinya.

“Haruko-chan?”

“No, she's weird and into horses.”

“My friend Makoto?” She remembered Makoto had taken to frequent the Akiba arcades because it was closer for her and Ryuji.

“No. She's okay, but she has a boyfriend. He's cool, I guess.”

“Well, it's not me, because you'd have already given me if it was…”  _ Maybe your scope is too narrow, _ Narcissus of all personas said, and it dawned on her. “Is it Shou-kun?”

_ Bullseye _ , she thought, as Shinya squeaked and hid his impressively blushing face in his hands.

“Hiragawa Shouta, Shin-chan? I thought you had standards.” She snickered and poked at his side, and he just groaned some more. “C’mon, I'm not gonna judge you. I would if it was Mishima, but Shou-kun is… okay, i guess?”

“He said I was cool and gave me a Pocky yesterday.” Shinya mumbled, defeated.

“A whole pocky? What a romantic gesture,” she teased, lightly and carefully, watching the boy so he wouldn't feel mocked or that she was looking down on him.

“I know he doesn't like me back. I think it's like when I had a crush on you. Except he's a boy and he probably has a girlfriend.” Shinya had a bitter tone, and his face got all scrunchy.

“I know how that feels.” She winced, feeling sympathetic with his plight.

“I really like him. Shouta is actually nice when you're not around, too,” he defended the other boy, tugging at his cap in discomfort. “He said it's not cool that you hang around with me, said you were a bad person.”

“Well, he's wrong about me, but he's not wrong. Older people like me can be nice or bad, sometimes there's just more of the bad ones.” She said, looking ahead, hugging her knees tighter.

“Ah. You go to Shujin. Did that pervy teacher do anything to you?” Shinya asked, tactless as always, but there was an undertone of worry.

“Ryuji and I said we were going to take a recording of him talking to our friend, Kamoshida said no one would believe us, because of a bullshit criminal record for assault I have and because Ryuji has one too.” Shinya looked at her, incredulous. “I know. Still have no idea why the court believed a drunk asshole over me. Kamoshida said he would get us expelled if we went to the police. And as we took off, he grabbed me before my friends saw it, and told me if I showed him how flexible I was, he'd leave us be.”

“That was a bad thing, right?” Shinya asked, looking ahead.

“He wanted to touch me like he did to the girl who threw herself off the rooftop, because he is a bad man, a bad adult and shouldn't have been given power over kids like us.”

“So you're saying I shouldn't trust if a highschool kid or adult wants to be my friend?” he asked. “So we shouldn't be friends.”

“Well, I don't want to drag you to somewhere people can't see us. That's a bad thing, y’know. Never meet an older person in a place with few people. And make a scene if they try. I didn't and things almost ended way bad for me.”

“Do you think Shouta doesn't like you because a bad adult did things to him?”

Ren sighed, looking at the crane game and wondering if she should try to goad Shin-chan into getting a Featherman figurine for Shou-kun as well.

“I don't know. Some people have to learn the hard way, like me. Shou-kun might just not like me because I gave him a nickname within five minutes of knowing him.”

“Hibi-san said Shouta doesn't like me hanging out with you because he likes you,” Shinya said, apathetic.

“That's too bad. I like my dates to be able to go to karaoke in the evening without an adult chaperone.” She laughed, getting up and fishing some coins from her uniform’s blazer. “Hey, wanna try the cranes? I think I saw an Alpacasso I don't have yet.”

“Cranes are lame, onee-san,” Shinya whined, and covered his mouth as Ren turned around, eyes shining.

“Oho? Tell me more about my favorite game being lame,  _ otouto _ .” She pinched one of his cheeks, making the boy even crankier, even if he looked less angry and more relieved.

“You're a shit person with shit tastes,  _ Ren-nee _ ,” he retorted, and she leaned dramatically against a game booth, hand over her heart.

“This is it. I am dead, killed by my own little brother.” She let herself slid to the ground, in a sideways split, to add to the drama. “Goodbye cruel world…”

“Ren-san! What the hell… Fine. I'll go help you with the cranes,” he relented, and she held a hand out, still playing dead. Shinya took it. “So, I just pull you up…?”

“Yeah, a little. Get me a little off the ground and I'll pull myself up.” He gave her arm a tug up and she used the momentum to fold up a leg. “Normally I'd just slide my feet back up, or use my own arms for it, but I'm way out of practice.”

“So, you got to grill me over my crush, it's only fair you tell me yours now.”

Ren put a coin in the slot and sighed, wondering how fast could she get the mint Alpacasso so she'd have a feasible excuse to avoid this.

“It's…”

“Don't say complicated. Adults say that all the time when the thing is really simple.” Shinya crossed his arms, analyzing the crane position. “Which one are we aiming for?”

“The greenish one. And I wasn't gonna say complicated. It's just a weird situation.”

“That one looks wedged in, try the one nearer to me. Unless he's a perv and spied on you naked, I don't see how liking someone is weird.”

“Looking good from my position. Well, he's an artist and I have posed for him. He's just… he's weird. A cool weird, but the weird is 100% from him.”

“A little to the back of the box. Why, did he ask you to pose naked?” Shinya intended to be mocking, but his eyes went wide when he saw her blush a little. “He did? Isn't that one of the bad things you said we should avoid?”

“Anchors away, and this conversation is getting a little above your allowed rating, Shin-chan.”

“Ew. Gross. You want to make out with him, ew.” Shinya made a face, and Ren couldn't help but laugh.

“Yeah, let's call it making out. Aw, it fell…” she complained, putting another coin in. “Aimed here.”

“A little to the other side. There. I still don't get what's stopping you from sucking face with a guy your age.”

“God's hand unleashed. Well, he might not like me back for starters. Plus he's not weird for the sake of being weird, he just is. It's hard to tell how a person feels when they're all over the place.”

The alpacasso seemed intent on not letting her get away from the conversation, because it fell just a few centimeters away from where the claw picked it up. She inserted a few coins in, resigned.

“That sounds more like you're afraid.”

“Looks okay to me. It's part me being scared of fucking up a perfectly nice friendship and part me not really knowing what to do.”

“Ah. You can throw it. And I don't know what to tell you. I thought you knew these things, being a girl and all.”

“Threw it. And being a girl has nothing to do with these things. I've never had to confess in my entire life. I remember after my first gymnastics meet, like six guys confessed to me in the same day. I don't know how to do this whole confessing thing.”

The plush toy was being very testy, because again, it moved just a few centimeters before falling.

“Are you kidding me? I don't remember crane games being this hard!”

“You still good on coins or need me to run to the coin machine?” He asked, twisting the strap of his backpack.

“If it doesn't fall now, you might need to. I'm not leaving without Minty-tan,” she growled, annoyed.

“Rest in peace Amamiya Ren-nee-san, left an entire paycheck in a crane game.” The boy said, fake-wisely.

“That sounded like a bad haiku,” she snorted.

“A little to the front. So, you don't want to confess because you don't know how?”

“I'm dropping it. Here's the thing. When I met him, I might’ve done things I'm not really proud of. I needed to do it and he knows that, but I'm -- WHAT THE FUCK?!”

The toy had gotten stuck in the wall of the dropzone.

“Wow, the fuck? It really doesn't want to come out. Kinda like your feelings.”

“Ugh.” She pulled out a five thousand yen bill and handed it to Shinya. “Go get me some feelings laxatives then… that sounded grosser than it had business being.”

“No shame in admitting you stress eat 100 yen candy,” he said, dodging a punch to the arm.

Shinya went to retrieve the coins, laughing at her.

“Hey, hot stuff. D’ya wanna ditch the kid, hang out with a real man?” A sleazy voice came from her left, and she turned to face the gross nerd who dared speak to her.

It wasn't much of a stereotypical gross nerd. It was just Kawashima-kun from class 3-A.

“Excuse me? Are you talking to me?”

“Do you see another hottie here?” He asked and Ren understood why Makoto said to stay away from him. He was getting overly familiar, putting an arm over her shoulder and getting way too close. Close enough that she could smell the cigarette in his breath.

“Don't touch me!” She tried to get away, put distance between her and this pervert schoolmate, but he just ignored the protests and pulled her closer.

“Or what, you'll hit me? All I'd have to do then is call the police. You don't want that, do you?” he threatened. “Just be pretty and come with me, baby.”

“ _ Let go of Onee-san! _ ” Shinya’s voice rang, loud enough to startle her. Kawashima turned to him, almost making her lose balance.

“And what will you do, kid? You're not old enough to know how to treat a woman.” The older boy said, cockily.

“Neither are you,  _ teenager _ ,” Shinya replied, pulling his phone. “I'll call the police. The arcade has cameras, especially around the crane games. You tell your story, we tell ours, I ask the police to check the recordings. Who do you think gets on the cops’ bad side then?”

The threat made Kawashima waver, gritting his teeth but his hold on her did not relent. She tried squirming a little more but it seemed nothing short of violence would make him let go.

“They'll believe me, because she has a criminal record for violence and whoring. Now fuck off before I have to beat you up,” he snarled, sliding his hand down her body and settling on her waist, pulling her towards him even as she tried to put as much distance as possible; he was much stronger than her, and Shinya wasn't remotely as physically intimidating as any of her friends were, compared to her.

A ray of divine light came through just as she resigned herself to having boys treat her like garbage for the rest of her school year.

“Unhand my son's girlfriend,” came Iwai-san’s voice, low, gritty and positively murderous.

Kawashima had either guts of steel or the smarts of an amoeba, because he simply turned around, still holding her firmly, and faced off Iwai-san.

“What's it to you? Does he know he's dating a slut?” Kawashima spat back, and yes. The smarts of an amoeba.

“How do you think they met?” Iwai-san replied, pulling up his sleeves as if he were readying for a fight, exposing his numerous arm tattoos in the process. “Now unhand her.”

Ren barely had time to feel offended, because Kawashima’s brain finally caught up with his situation and he paled, letting her go and all but running away.

“What the fuck, Iwai-san!” She exclaimed, annoyed. “I worked really hard for people at school stop with the prostitution rumors and now they'll pick up again!”

“You should make better use of them, then. Now your schoolmates will know you might be a whore, but you're a yakuza whore, and they don't have the money to hire you.” The man shrugged, putting his sleeves down. “I'll be going, Kaoru should be arriving soon, if you want to join us.”

“Nah. I was about to get that Alpacasso and go home scrub dishes. Apparently Sojiro counts washing them as my rent.” She smiled. “Can't fall behind now.”

“Pick up the kid's jaw on the way, girly. Your friend there seems a little shocked.” He waved. “I might need help in the shop. I'll text you.”

“Can't, today I got a shift at my actual job at Lala-chan’s. I'll text you about tomorrow.”

“See ya, girly.” She didn't wait to see him wave away, just turned to Shinya, whose jaw was on the floor.

“Iwai-san is not actually yakuza, you know. He's just scary.” She leaned on the crane game, unfazed.

“Huh? Ah,” the boy seemed to shake himself from his stupor, “here's your coins.” He handed her a small plastic bag with coins.

“You're not very good at playing cool yet, Shin-chan.” She put some more coins in the machine, already eyeing the Sailor Senshi wand crane game beside her.

If only her classmates knew her actual addiction was crane games instead of drugs.

(It'd change nothing, she knew, but rumors of having broken through glass to get the toy she wanted were better than rumors about sleeping with anyone who dragged her to a dark alley.)

“You're not cheating on the guy's son with that artist you like, right?”

She hit the drop button with a little more strength than necessary, out of annoyance.

“Kaoru’s like, two years older than you? Iwai-san was lying to help me.”

Finally, the plush fell through, three thousand yen later.

“How's a lie that's worse than the original’s going to help?” Shinya was legitimately curious, but all she wanted was get home and scrub Kawashima off of her.

Ren walked to the Sailor Moon game, telling herself that if a shitty wannabe alpha male like Kawashima could fuck up her day plans, then they won and she had deserved the false accusation.

“Well, how often do you hear of someone messing with an yakuza’s favorite callgirl and living?” She put the 300 yen into the slot. “Think positive thoughts. I deserve Eternal Sailor Moon’s wand and tiara after these last 10 minutes.”

“Is that the very last one?” Shinya’s eyes widened, and she nodded. “You better call your friends for help on those.”

She pulled up her phone and took a picture, shooting them a message.

 

[ジョーカーにゃん]   
\---> _ Image sent _   
Wish me luck, i want to be eternal sailor moon now instead of phantom thief.

 

Pocketing her phone, she concentrated on the pole her prize was. Five lesser prizes of Luna plush, Sailor Mars wand and tiara, Sailor Uranus figurine, Super Chibi Moon and Usagi-chan figurine stood in her way.

Sojiro was going to strangle her for skipping helping him this afternoon in favor of Sailor Moon merch.

“If I never see you again, Shin-chan, it was an honor to be your fake sister.” She declared before pressing the button to start the strength slider. She all but slammed it again to get the slippery bastard to stop on the proper claw strength to make the first prize fall.

“How bad are the rumors about you?” Shinya asked.

“Bad. They think I tried to kill the prime minister, or so last week's gossip said.” She shoved the Alpacasso in her bag, and the Luna plush, quickly realizing she should give Shinya some yen to grab a tote from Otaku Goods. Her school bag was going to suffer at this rate.

“What did that jerk mean by what he said when I told him to let go?”

“The one about whoring?” He nodded, and she put more coins in. “The man who accused me of beating him bloody also said I was trying to sell myself to him. When Kamoshida leaked my record, people saw that and the dudes at school all seem to think they can either pay me to sleep with them or force me to do it, because of my probation. Probation means I have to be good for the time of duration or they'll throw me in jail.”

“That's bullshit. Even if that's true, you're clearly trying not to go to jail, shouldn't your student council do something?”

“Makoto is the council president, and she's trying, but Jerk-sempai there is also in the council. The other council members are just… of the opinion it's none of their business.” She sighed. “Makes for a difficult school life, if you ask me.”

Her next claw pluck moved the Mars stuff closer to the end of the pole, which was okay. That was an acceptable pace.

“... How did you meet the not-yakuza scary guy?” She was thankful that Shinya didn’t press for more information on the matter. She just wanted to drown her feelings about  _ that _ in a mountain of cute selfies in her Sailor Senshi outfit, surrounded by more Alpacasso than she knew what to do with, Morgana complaining about the moon sticker on his forehead and tons of crane game merch.

“He runs an airsoft shop in Shibuya. It’s… business, I guess. He helps me out and I help him run errands.”

“That’s so cool. Can you just go in there and get anything you want?” Shinya’s eyes were shining, excitement clear in his voice as his favorite subject (guns) was breached.

“Not really. He’s teaching me to modify the guns so they’re cooler looking and more realistic, it’s very cool.” She inserted coins and again hit the pluck claw controls as fast as possible into an acceptable strength range.

“That's so cool! Think you could get one to look like the Gun About one?” Shinya pressed the button right as it passed the full strength pluck, making the pole vibrate so much it made all the prizes move forward and the Mars tiara and wand fall off.

“Iwai-san would be less than happy about using his skills to make a pistol glow, but I’ll see what I can do,” She said, pulling his cap off to ruffle his hair.

“Hey, stop that!” He started jumping to grab his cap back, but she used her height to keep it out of his reach. “Just you wait, I’ll be taller than you and I’ll refuse to grab anything in high places for you, you shitty onee-san!”

“Oh, you silly Shin-chan, I’ve been informed I am runway-model-tall, which is anywhere above 170cm. I’m 183cm. You can leave emas at the shrine and hope, but you cannot possibly be taller than the daughter of a former Olympian volleyball player and a college basketball player,” she said, holding his cap high and putting coins into the crane game at the same time with ease. “But as a gesture of goodwill between giants and hobbits, I’ll give you your cap back.”

“Fuck off,” he muttered, pulling his cap down, looking very much like a grumpy cat.

Her phone went off, the tune from Like a Dragon telling her it was either Makoto or Iwai. Normally it was Iwai, because Makoto rarely texted her and her alone, except for girls night out or shopping for Buchi-kun things (or less often now to complain how oblivious their respective crushes are). This time it was Makoto.

 

[niijima makoto]   
REN.   
REN.   
PLEASE TELL ME YOU’RE AVAILABLE   
I MADE A MISTAKE.

[ジョーカーにゃん]   
Calm down   
What happened?

[niijima makoto]   
I TOLD RYUJI I LIKE HIM

[ジョーカーにゃん]   
And then you bolted

[niijima makoto]   
AND THEN I RAN AWAY   
Yes. what do I do.

 

“Uh,” she told Shinya. “Raincheck on this entire conversation, preferably for when I die?”

“Please. I think I exhausted my ability to talk feelings for the year. On the bright side, I’ll never be able to confess to Shouta, because I can’t talk about feelings anymore. So thanks,” Shinya grumbled.

“Anytime, kiddo.” Ren stuck her tongue out at him, and tried to ruffle his hair, which he dodged. “Ha. Your dodging statuses leveled up I see.”

“It’s because some shitty onee-san kept messing with my hair.” He stuck his tongue at her back. “Don’t forget, there’s a Gun About tournament coming up, you gotta come see me kick ass!”

“I’ll be there for sure, you shitty little brother.”

**Author's Note:**

> if ur name happens to be cindy and u feel baited, hmu and kick my ass adksfdlgjflj
> 
> if ur just a random commenter, pls leave any concrit in my inbox, i love to frick concrits.
> 
> in time: i based Shinya off my RL (now 14 yo) cousin. like shin-chan here, he's a fan of fps games, frequents an arcade more than it's healthy and is surprisingly understanding, if a little emotionally constipated.
> 
> thank u for reading pls leave comments and kudos, they're all v much appreciated <3 <3 <3


End file.
